Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice.

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 11:05:03PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 10:23:08PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 09:58:30PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 09:29:45PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 12:17:46PM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 08:27:53PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > > > > > Mmm, probably that 2001 discussion about the keyspan firmware, right ?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >   http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/04/msg00145.html
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > Can you summarize the conclusion of the thread, or what you did get from it,
> > > > > > please ? 
> > > > > 
> > > > > That people didn't like the inclusion of firmware, I posted how you can
> > > > > fix it by moving it outside of the kernel, and asked for patches.
> > > > 
> > > > Yeah, that is a solution to it, and i also deplore that none has done the job
> > > > to make it loadable from userland. For now, debian is satisfied by moving the
> > > > whole modules involved to non-free, and this has already happened in part.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Does this imply your installer will use these non-free modules?
> > 
> > The installer already has provision for loading additional .udebs from floppy
> > or net, not sure about other media, and we don't build yet non-free d-i images
> > with those non-free modules builtin, but it could be arranged. This is
> > post-sarge issues though, and we still have some time to solve them.
> > 
> > > If the driver for the controller your harddisk is behind is not used by 
> > > the installer you could simply remove these modules instead of moving 
> > > them to non-free.
> > 
> > yeah, the problem is a whole bunch of people have tg3 network cards it seem :)
> 
> 
> I was more thinking about SCSI controllers, but tg3 is also interesting.
> 
> Additional non-free d-i images will for sure be required, or several 
> hardware setups might make installation of Debian impossible without 
> bootstrapping through a different OS or distribution.

Well, you only need one free way to get access to external media, non-free d-i
simply add a bunch of non-free .udebs to the initrd.

> > > > Nope, i am aiming to clarify this issue with regard to the debian kernel, so
> > > > that we may be clear with ourselves, and actually ship something which is not
> > > > of dubious legal standing, and that we could get sued over for GPL violation.
> > > >...
> > > 
> > > 
> > > If it was a GPL violation, it wasn't enough to contact only the small 
> > > subset of copyright holders that worked on this specific file since 
> > > this file might be compiled statically into the GPL'ed kernel.
> > 
> > That is not a problem, since even if the firmware is built into the same
> > executable as the rest of the kernel code, it still constitutes only mere
> > agregation, where the kernel is the distribution media, in the GPL sense.
> > Please read the mail i linked too in the original mail for detailed
> > argumentation of this.
> > 
> > The only problem to it constituting mere agregation is that the firmware blob
> > is not clearly identified as such in the tg3.c file (for example), and that
> > there is no licencing condition allowing their distribution apart the GPL,
> > which these firmware blobs where evidently not meant to be put under.
> 
> 
> This is one possible legal interpretation of "mere aggregation".
> 
> Whether judges in all jurisdictions of the world follow this 
> interpretation or an interpretation of the GPL in one direction or 
> another is the more interesting question.

This is also hinted at by the FSF FAQ, and a verbatim interpretation of the
actual GPL text. And you can proof by asburd that it has to be so, or you
start facing no end of troubles :)

The thread i linked, which is rather short, has some more legalese
explanations (not by me :), if you are interested.

Friendly,

Sven Luther